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By Gary Tasman As we look back at downtown Fort Myers 40 years ago, there was little to no reason to head that way unless you had business to conduct during the day. Downtown turned into a ghost town after 5 p.m. on weeknights and on the weekends. But lawmakers and community leaders saw its potential and had a vision for change. Flash forward to today, and you’ll witness the renaissance taking place that is transforming downtown Fort Myers into a desirable destination to live, work and play seven days a week. In 2020, we identified key developments that would have the greatest impact on the growth of Downtown and Midtown Fort Myersincluding the Luminary Hotel and the return of conventions with the Caloosa Sound Convention Center. Now business and housing markets in the area are booming and there are a variety of new downtown Fort Myers businesses in the permitting process. Few cities in the region have it all in one place like Fort Myers does. Nestled alongside the picturesque Caloosahatchee River, downtown boasts boating, parks, walkable streets, rich history at your fingertips, local charm, independently owned boutique shops and restaurants, outdoor dining, and an array of arts and cultural events. City of Fort Myers Mayor Kevin Anderson said, “Over the last 20 years, the city has done a phenomenal job of bringing in more rooftops, and the focus is now on continued economic development.” Poised for More Growth Fort Myers and Lee County are poised for more growth than ever as people from across the country flock to our beautiful waterfront paradise. With the new Caloosa Sound Convention Center in full swing, we are seeing more national and international conventions coming back to Fort Myers and away from Bonita Springs, Sanibel and Captiva. Plus waterfront living, vibrant nightlife spots and a variety of entertainment options only add to the area’s intrigue. The Luminary Hotel has been hugely successful. The 243-room hotel features a rooftop bar, signature restaurant, modern diner, local coffee roastery and nearby waterside restaurant. Guests can spend time in the hotel or walk outside into the center of downtown Fort Myers to charming shops, restaurants and bars. The Luminary’s potential to bring more businesses to the Fort Myers River District paired with other downtown developments will make the area one to watch. The Caloosa Sound Amphitheater is now open and 2,500 people are able to watch concerts and other performances. Centennial Park will also soon be complete and that will help attract even more people to the area. Big-name shows at these venues will only equal more dollars being pumped into the downtown economy. Together these venues will help put downtown Fort Myers on the entertainment map at the perfect time, as more performers are beginning to tour the country. Planting the Seeds of the Future With these demand generators in place, 40 years from now the city could be unrecognizable. These developments will not only enhance the city and make it more appealing for property investors, but we will also see more businesses consider Fort Myers as their base of operations. If we continue on this path of growth, the area could become another unique world-class 18-hour-a-day live work and play environment alive with deep local culture and rich subtropical entertainment and atmosphere. “We’ve got to do it right, so it is attractive to businesses and people say that’s a community we want to do business in, we want to raise our families in and that’s a community we want to live and work in,” Mayor Anderson said. During the height of COVID, 850 to 1,100 people were moving to Florida each day. 23,000 people moved to Lee County alone from July 2020 to July 2021. Downtown Fort Myers and Lee County are blossoming and the seeds we plant now will help the area become the booming metropolis we know it can be. The Future of Downtown Fort Myers Focusing on the future and potential of downtown Fort Myers should be our priority. Ensuring that Fort Myers remains the vibrant, attractive city it is now depends on whether city leadership and developers do the right thing today. The city is looking at the possibility of taking Henry Street from the river down to the stadium and making it a pedestrian walk. There is also talk of smart parking and the technology that comes with self-driving cars. We will likely see the day when there will be more people than cars coming downtown. This means the city and businesses should look at how to better serve heavy pedestrian traffic and even consider the future of parking garages in the downtown space. Some big developments to keep in mind: Vantage – Proposed 16-story apartment building (225 units) and an accompanying 4-level parking deck. Seaboard Waterside Apartments – Two 6-story apartment buildings with a total of 420 units and amenities. Edsel Lofts – Residential development consisting of nine 3-story townhomes, each with a two-car garage and master suite terrace. AC Marriott – New 8-story, 132-room AC Marriott hotel with a ground floor bar and rooftop entertainment center. Gardners Park Grove – New residential development consisting of 10, two-story homes. Riverfront First Street Apartments – New 8-story multi-family development consisting of 221 residential units featuring a pool, riverwalk and associated amenities. McCollum Hall – Complete renovation of the historic McCollum Hall Building. Allure – Two new 32-story towers with 292 residential units and amenities. Staybridge Suites Hotel – New 6-story hotel with 100 guest rooms, pool, fitness area, and associated amenities. Prima Luce – Two 22-story towers with 220 residential units and amenities. Seaboard Self Storage – Self-storage facility consisting of three buildings with a combination of 60,000 sq ft. 2233 Grand Avenue Warehouse – New 3,892 square foot retail warehouse. First Street Apartments – Multifamily development consisting of 275 units, parking garage, 9,189 sq ft clubhouse, pool and related infrastructure. Hampton Inn – New 111-room Hampton Inn hotel on the corner of McGregor Bvd and Cleveland Ave.

By Gary Tasman A decade ago, it was hard to imagine the concept of a smart building or how it would transform the commercial real estate landscape. Today, smart building technology and flexible workspaces are one of the top priorities for commercial spaces. Some advantages of using a smart building for your commercial property include: Reduced costs related to maintenance and energy consumption Increased productivity Reduced amount of emissions Increased resale value What is a Smart Building? A smart building is any building that uses the Internet of Things (IoT) to automatically control things like heating, power, ventilation, air conditioning, security, lighting and other systems. This means the building can be managed from anywhere and at any time. Smart buildings give us more data than ever before, which allows decisions to be made with more clarity, better allocation of resources and increased savings in the long run. In time, all commercial buildings may become smart buildings. What is the Internet of Things? Smart technology is possible in part because of the IoT or everything connected to the internet. Think of objects and devices that “talk” to each other such as smartphones, computers, and watches. By combining these connected devices with automated systems, the building can gather information, analyze it and use it to make informed decisions from saving on energy costs to completing tasks for staff. An Office vs a Smart Building Smart buildings can give you an experience that general commercial buildings cannot.  The everyday building can’t collect data from user devices, systems, services and sensors the way a smart building can. This data not only makes the building programmable and customizable, but also more responsive to the needs of the building manager and employees. This technology is transforming how Facilities Managers approach asset management. With this data at their fingertips, they can ensure the comfort of its occupants, increase utilization and interact with staff at a higher level. Imagine an office building coming to life when you walk in! As developers nationwide face supply chain disruptions, rising interest rates and increased inflation, developers in the Southwest Florida market show little cause for concern. Population growth continues to climb and more companies are moving to the area, which also helps drive revenue. This gives developers a fantastic opportunity to capitalize on the smart building trend and create value with their property. Why Companies Should Invest in Smart Buildings One of the most enticing things about smart buildings is that when you compare them to conventional buildings, they perform much better. Although they cost more upfront, they bring in more rent in the long run. Smart building technology can cover more than heating and air conditioning and lighting systems. What makes this technology so appealing is that it can integrate into just about every system. For example, in retail, smart building technology can apply to things like security cameras and point-of-sale (POS) systems. Some local smart building examples include: Arthrex NeoGeonomics Franz EyeCare “It’s exciting to see businesses in our community shift into smart buildings and experience all of the benefits,” said CEO and Principal Broker, Gary Tasman. “As more businesses adopt this trend and more companies relocate to Southwest Florida, we could quickly see the commercial property landscape in our region shift toward this incredibly beneficial technology.” How Smart Buildings Make the Office More Efficient  It’s no secret that the office is forever changed in a post-pandemic world. When more people and businesses wish to move to a city like Fort Myers, city planners and commercial real estate developers must consider making the office environment more appealing than working from home. They have to figure out what the office environment now means for their company and what kind of employees they wish to attract. An economy that’s poised to keep on improving paired with strong office-using employment growth is making more companies seek out new types of office space. In fact, global Experience per Square Foot™ (XSF) data shows that employees with choice and control over where they work perform better. Employees are looking for companies that make the job and office an experience, not just a cubicle to go to every day. If you haven’t thought about moving back to the office or a hybrid work environment, it’s only a matter of time. For more information about smart building technology and commercial development opportunities around Southwest Florida, reach out to the Commercial Property Experts at Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Property Southwest Florida at 239-489-3600 or by contact-us.

By Gary Tasman The transportation corridors around Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) have been home to some of the fastest-growing development projects in our region during the past 10 years. While we’ve previously discussed some of the exciting commercial improvements near the airport, we haven’t focused on the airport itself, and how it both impacts and reflects our area’s fast-growing economy. Continued Growth at RSW For the third straight month, RSW has posted passenger numbers above 1 million, a trend unseen since before the pandemic in late-2019 and early-2021. While most airports around the nation are still struggling to return to their pre-COVID numbers, RSW’s passenger traffic continues to steadily climb. Ben Siegel, executive director of the Lee County Port Authority, estimates that only about 10 to 15 percent of our nation’s airports have truly recovered from the pandemic and RSW is the clear leader in post-COVID passengers. “In 2021, we had the busiest year in the history of the airport with 10.3 million passengers,” explained Siegel on our April “What’s Developing in Southwest Florida?”[LINK] podcast. In terms of the number of travelers at RSW since the start of the pandemic, Siegel adds, “We went from being 95 percent down to the fastest recovering airport in the country. We are now fully recovered and, currently, 2022 is exceeding 2021.” Economic Growth and Passenger Traffic Airports are instruments of economic growth and the recovery of passenger traffic at RSW is synergistic with the evolution and recovery of our region. Our local economy would not be developing at its current rapid pace if not for the ease of travel to Southwest Florida. As more people have visited Lee and Collier counties and discovered our outstanding beaches, recreation, education and overall quality of life, more business owners and remote employees have made the decision to move here permanently. Those new residents, in turn, produce additional demand for the airport. The synergy between airport and economic growth is quantifiable. Economist Jan K. Brueckner found that a 10 percent increase in airport passenger traffic leads to a 1 percent increase in service industry employment in that metropolitan area. But airplanes are more than just passenger vehicles — they also move cargo from point to point and RSW is seeing expansion in this arena as well. In 2019, the airport handled nearly 35.7 million pounds of freight, a number that climbed 16.5 percent to more than 41.5 million pounds by the end of 2021. Building for the Future To accommodate the anticipated continued growth of both passenger and freight traffic, the Port Authority has adopted an aggressive and robust capital improvement program that will see a billion dollars in airport investment over the next decade. The plans begin with a three-year Terminal Expansion Project that has already started. This expansion will simplify the TSA screening process, and both increase and improve the amenities offered to passengers. Other long-term capital projects on the horizon include adding a new concourse with 14 additional gates, an expansion of parking and rental car services, as well as the construction of a parallel runway. A new $80 million Airport Traffic Control Tower was completed in December, with the cost split between the Lee County Port Authority and the Florida Department of Transportation. Building a tower without funds from the FAA is unusual, if not entirely unheard of, but the Port Authority recognized the need to construct a new tower as the lynchpin for its future second runway. To diversify its revenue stream and generate capital for future projects, the Port Authority is continuing to develop Skyplex, a commercial development area on the north side of the airport, which offers a destination experience with Class A office space, hospitality and entertainment, transportation logistics and support and more. At Cushman & Wakefield |Commercial Property Southwest Florida, we are excited to partner with the Lee County Port Authority on the master planning and ultimate development of Skyplex. With more than 1,000 acres of land that can be developed for both aviation and non- aviation, Skyplex has the potential to become a truly special destination for residents, travelers and Southwest Florida businesses. Skyplex offers an outstanding opportunity for commercial developers along a highly visible transportation corridor. The property is strategically located in a Foreign Trade Zone and has 1,150 acres zoned for aviation, as well as multi-use commercial and light industrial development. This property will only become more desirable for investors, developers and business owners as RSW continues to grow. For more information about commercial development opportunities around Southwest Florida International Airport, reach out to the Commercial Property Experts at Cushman & Wakefield |Commercial Property Southwest Florida at 239-489-3600 or by contact-us.